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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26799850">Willow and Roses</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed'>wreathed</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Broken Engagement, F/M, Flirting, Multi, Post-Canon Fix-It, Relationship Negotiation, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Wedding Planning</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 07:35:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>718</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26799850</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sophia and Francis have a rethink. For the prompt: 'celebrate'.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sophia Cracroft/Captain Francis Crozier, Sophia Cracroft/Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Willow and Roses</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I do not think we should marry,” Francis confesses.</p><p>“Oh, thank goodness,” Sophia says.</p><p>The first time they had been alone together since the <i>Enterprise</i> had docked at Greenhithe had been in the spectral splendour of the Franklins’ drawing room. It was not a comfortable house for Francis to be in, particularly now Lady Jane has so publicly poured scorn on certain aspects of his and James’s testimony, but Sophia had extended the invitation herself and Francis had felt ashamed he had been caught agonising for so long as to whether to request their reunion at all that she had been the one to arrange it.</p><p>He had intended to merely assure Sophia of his continuing affection and friendship for her, but then Sophia had asked him which day of the week he thought best for a morning ceremony, and he found himself under the thumb of her assumption and politely saved of the trouble of repeating his favourite question to her for a third time.</p><p>A month has passed, the wedding now three days away. Sophia has been so busy that Francis has hardly seen her; after all, there is a dress to arrange and someone to meet who will source her flowers, so many growing roses to be paid for and wrenched out the ground, and many other tasks to be done. Sophia takes to these tasks with enviable efficiency but, Francis eventually realises, relatively little enthusiasm. </p><p>“I thought I was doing you a kindness,” Sophia says, hand at Francis’s forearm. “How could I in all good conscience deny you once more, when I had been so certain I would never see you alive again? But to think I was going to have to abandon Lady Jane, to be tied to home and hearth, to perhaps never again be able to travel. All told, I am happy to return to us meeting privately for an evening whenever it takes our fancy.”</p><p>“I thought I was doing <i>you</i> a kindness. I did not know you would still prefer your freedom.”</p><p>Sophia snorts without good comportment. “Of course there would have been no curtailing of <i>your</i> freedoms. All this purported happiness and yet I have barely seen you for our entire engagement. Were you still to go and… to go and see Captain Fitzjames whenever you like?”</p><p>A flush rises in Francis’s cheeks. The worst of the horrors of the expedition were not the only secrets he and James were keeping.</p><p>“Married men are still allowed to see their friends for cards and Navy business,” he ventures, his bottom lip treacherously tremulous. “I see no impediment.”</p><p>“Francis,” Sophia sighs. “I am well aware of what constitutes the expression on your face when you hold the person upon which you are gazing in the highest possible esteem. I would be familiar with that, no?”</p><p>“God above, Sophia. Is everything already paid for?”</p><p>“The day itself is an irreversible expense. And an announcement will have to be made.”</p><p>“Your marrying James would bring you better financial security than mine — he has plenty of money now, following his windfall. Then I could recharge all this nonsense to him, dress and all.”</p><p>“Imagine the scandal!” she laughs. It is said with some relish, and Francis is cheered to see she too has anger for how society has treated them all.</p><p>He imagines himself something pagan and forbidden, under the light of a gibbous moon: all three of them joined together. It should rightly be done in the presence of the ice but if that could not be then it would be in a clearing deep in a forest, their six hands grasping a hoop of willow; smooth, none of the thorns of roses. Wed by the stars amid the clinging scent of damp moss and ferns drenched after a thunderstorm. Fecund and growing and alive for as long as they can stand it.</p><p>Francis clears his throat. “Well. If you wished one evening to join us for a card game or two…”</p><p>“And this so-called Navy business also? That would be delightful,” Sophia says. “I’d expect two <i>games</i> for me at a minimum, what with there being two of you.”</p><p>“Wear your wedding dress for us both,” Francis tells her, voice conspiratorially low, “and we’ll treat it with the respect it deserves.”</p>
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